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Coloradans press House for quick action on immigration reform

WASHINGTON — Colorado chamber leaders, farmers and clergy on Tuesday gathered in the offices of the state's Republican representatives here and urged them to push immigration reform to a vote before the end of the year.

"The Senate got theirs done," said Mike Mitchell, a potato farmer from Monte Vista who said he relies partly on immigrant labor to work his warehouses. "In my thoughts, it's the darn House that needs to come up with something."

The Colorado push on Capitol Hill comes at the same time a political action group called the Latino Victory Project said it would spend as much as $20 million on campaigns targeting 10 House Republicans in an effort to push them to support comprehensive immigration reform.

Two of those 10 are GOP Reps. Scott Tipton and Mike Coffman, from Cortez and Aurora, respectively.

The money will be spent on the "sprint" to the end of this year and then will be shifted to educating Latino voters in 2014, said Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project.

"Our Latino donors and allies are really frustrated at this point by House inaction on immigration reform," Alex said. "We don't want just words, we want action."

Tipton said Tuesday he was "pretty much in sync" with the Colorado stakeholders — including on a "good, viable guest worker program, good border security, something that works for the employer and employee."

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Tipton said he pressured House leadership to bring an immigration-reform bill to the floor soon but said he didn't think it would happen this year.

Coffman has said he supports comprehensive immigration reform, with qualifications. He is also working on giving DREAMers, kids who were brought to the United States illegally as children, a path to citizenship through military service.

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